


I'll Get You There

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Category: Starfighter Eclipse
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Feels, Ficlet, M/M, Surreal, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 23:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8420584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: There's a futility to denying mortality, but Selene sees it and doesn't say a word.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all!
> 
> This idea drifted into my head and stuck there, so I scribbled it down.
> 
> There are references to my other works (and I like to think that this fits in with the story arc) but there's nothing so vital that you'd _need_ to have waded through them (with the exception of Selene's real name. Well, that's in here, so I leave it up to you whether to read onward or not: I do suggest checking out [_Phototropic_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/543991) for full-and-proper context but if you're comfy without, that's lovely too).
> 
> As always, thoughts/comments/suggestions/reviews'n'things are always welcome. I hope you enjoy. <3

It is cold, almost too cold for the water. The sand is thick between their toes; the wind plays against their skin, pinks their cheeks, leaves their muscles tense. Selene glances at his Afon, smiling oh-so-slightly: the Fighter’s teeth are clenched against the chill but there’s a grim light in his eyes. The Navigator himself doesn’t mind: it’s been too long since he came here with Whaea: what’s cold to this homecoming with the man he loves?

They follow the coastline, the fringes of green hills not yet swallowed up sprawling cities, as so much of the island is—the world. The sky seems thick, the air tainted; ironic, so it seems, that the air on Europa (or Mars, for that matter—or the _Kepler_ ) made for better breathing. He wishes he could inhale deeply, could smell the unadulterated salty brine, the sand, the trees . . .

“Hey. Rawiri.”

Selene looks up, startled at the name fallen from his Fighter’s lips, a name he hasn’t told to anyone—not since the Alliance snatched him, a fourteen-year-old boy with burnt hands and haunted dreams: they painted him a hero, cast him genius—but for whatever their records showed, he’d never thought as much—and never trusted anyone enough—

But it’s right. Vaguely he wonders why he’s never told his Afon, his sweet, volatile, wild river. But here they are, and here it’s right: no more need for thought than that.

Thick, scum-dark clouds break, finally, and there drops the sun between, a thousand suns besides speckling across the ocean’s waves. His Fighter is beautiful, half-cast in its light, his dark, dark hair gleaming, his storm-blue eyes aglow. He smiles, flushed cheeks grown a darker shade. "Rawiri.” Again his name, again on lips and a tongue which have such skill in acts of love but which can’t quite work around the subtle cadences, the syllables: the Navigator chuckles to himself: he’d no more easily master Russian or Welsh, would he?

Afon pivots slowly, putting his back to the wind, beckoning Selene closer, closer, until their bodies are flush and the heat radiating from that muscled frame is a soothing song to the Navigator’s own cold-prickled skin. For a moment they dance around a kiss, their hands wandering, until Afon’s arms tighten gently around the slender frame—until the ocean and the sand and sky whorl into one and Selene finds himself cradled, cradled against a scarred chest; he feels the ten points of his Afon’s fingertips splayed across his flesh and moans, nose tucked against his Fighter’s cheek, inhaling the scent of him.

“Too cold for the water?”

Selene lifts his head. “No. Not now.”

Gently Afon sets him down, their hands still clasped; only then does Selene realize that they’ve thus far strode along the beach naked—but he does not fear discovery, is not ashamed—only then does he realize too that the air is sharp, is _clean_ —only then does he twist his head back and see the hills, the clear, clear sky: the land as it once was . . .

His breath catches and his body aches and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or weep or fling his Fighter to the sand and—

But the ocean _is_ cold: it bites at their toes: Selene doesn’t hesitate, steps into the lapping waves, feels a tug against his hand, looks back: Afon hesitates.

Of course. He’s seen no water such as this on Mars. He can surely taste the salt against his lips, can hear the rhythmic call—can’t he? A Fighter’s first concern always seems to be survival—and yes, the ocean is deep, is cold, grows dark—but does his Afon forget whom he walks beside?

_If you beckoned me into the snowcapped woods of your Earth-kindred-own, I’d follow you._

“You’re safe,” Selene whispers finally. “I promise you.”

Afon shakes his head, wide-eyed. “Rawiri. I don’t swim. There’s nothing out there.”

“Shh. It’s okay. E ipo, look at me. I'll get you there.”

_'Nothing,' you say: Afon, you don't know . . ._

Selene steps back, presses the Fighter to him, coerces him, caressing him: a dance: a play of feet beneath the waves, the steady work of hands across cool skin: the soft whisperings in a language his Afon doesn’t know but oh, but oh, he can’t stand Anglic now—

Afon, likewise, murmurs something in Welsh, the tongue he uses only for his Rawiri . . .

The water plays at their waists: even in the cold their bodies are warm, are needful: Selene smiles again, the pull of the tide against his smaller form giving him a rhythm for the kisses he plants along his Fighter’s jaw.

And then the water waxes deep with the ocean’s sway, works Selene from his feet before his Afon: there is a flash of panic across the latter’s face before his Navigator beckons, gently—his Navigator, who’s never let him go—until the Fighter’s body instinctively catches on, until he at once swims and lets himself be towed. Salt is thick against his lips and stings his eyes, but always, always there is his Rawiri—Selene—his fucking brilliant Navigator—

Their muscles grow weary: there is no longer any sight of land: just blue, just bright, just flashes of ombre hair and olive skin to keep Afon from mortal terror—

And his Rawiri just laughs, as if he does not understand the danger.

* * *

They blink, they blink, the sky is dark, the sun is gone, the waves are thick and black and there is nothing, not even stars, to be tossed reflectively against the water or their gleaming skin, their wide, wide eyes. Just as that, between one breath and the next: and it is _cold_ , far colder than the ocean ever was: Selene cries out, his Fighter’s body somehow finding his: there is heat, is warmth, are steady, steady arms—

* * *

But this is not the ocean, nor the night, nor the depths of space to swallow them: all equally pitch-black: all hungry maws. This is . . . he doesn’t know . . .

The ocean’s tide, pulling him, inexorably? He feels it, still, he feels it—ah—but not the tide—not _that_ tide, anyway, if this is but a different primal current—the grinding of his Afon’s hips—subtle—the motion of their coupled selves carrying such a similar cadence—

And the darkness? The _Kepler_ ’s night-cycle, of course, and yet—

Selene blinks, is blinded for a moment by something like the sun (thanks to his own)—

And realizes then the meaning of it all, a precious, dark-strewn, sorrow-riddled thing of which he will never speak.

That someday they will step into the ocean, into the depths, the maw. Together, as always—

And what will become.


End file.
